Pretzels
by FairyCakesAndDaggers
Summary: Every adventure begins with a moment. A series of vignettes involving a strange young woman from the (12th) Doctor's future.
1. Dropping In

**_With infinite and eternal gratitude to "M"_**

* * *

Every adventure begins with a moment. That's what I heard before every bedtime story growing up. I always thought it was merely a way to get started, similar to _"Once upon a time"_ and that ilk.

One day, I would come to realise that those stories were preparing me for a strange day, far more bizarre than I ever could have imagined.

I was with the Doctor at a critical moment, and he looked at me with confused wonder. Before I could stop him, he'd set my vortex manipulator and sent me into the past.

_His_ past, to be precise.

It was the same face but much younger than the one I'd just left. And, where the one who'd sent me back had been chuckling, the one I'd been sent to was scowling.

There's such intensity in those eyes.

One day, he will know who I am. For now, it's better he doesn't.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" the Doctor demanded.

I was splayed on the floor of the console room of the TARDIS, dazed. I held my left hand up.

"Vortex manipulator," he scoffed.

"Yes. My head," I groaned. "I think I hit it when I . . . landed." I admit I was rather embarrassed by the lack of grace with which I dropped in on him.

A ding sounded from somewhere above me, but I had to shut my eyes to the light that came on at the same time. I could hear the sound of a sonic screwdriver scanning me.

"You'll be fine. Just lie still for a bit," he advised.

My eyes opened slowly. "Why did he send me here?" I whispered.

"Who? Who sent you?" he demanded.

I smiled up at him apologetically. "Spoilers."

His shoulders slumped. "Oh, no. Not this again."


	2. Tea?

"Ah," I sighed happily. "Tea's ready." I poured two cups and prepared them as I'd always done.

He took a sip and smiled. "It's perfect. So, you know me in the future?"

"Yes, and you know you can't ask me about it," I replied flatly. I had to be very careful about what I said.

He chuckled. Oh, it's always good to hear the Doctor laugh.

"You can at least tell me your name. I can't just keep calling you _you_."

"Fair enough. You can call me Aurélie. Now, Doctor, where are you in your timestream?"

He set his teacup on the table. "I froze Gallifrey," he responded softly. "I changed the outcome of the Last Great Time War." He let out a giddy chuckle.

I shook my head. He had lived with the guilt for far too long. "You didn't change anything," I murmured. "You did what you always did, what you always set out to do. It's like what happened at Lake Silencio."

"I had to make everyone else believe it," he remarked more to himself than to me. "But I remember Gallifrey burning."

I arched an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"Well, yes! I - I - I had The Moment in front of me, my hand . . . on the red button . . ." His voice faded.

I knew the story of what he did that day all too well. On Gallifrey, we learn about it in our earliest school years, how we owe our continued existence to one man and what it took him lifetimes to do. It's the stuff of legends, The Day of the Doctor.

He just needed a little help remembering it.

There was too much confusion in those eyes, as though he were trying - No, I was aware of what was coursing through that wonderful mind.

Maybe that's why he sent me back to this day.

I drew a shaky breath. "You had your hand," I began softly, "on the big red button. When you went to London and encountered the Nestene Consciousness, what did you remember?"

It took him several moments to search his memories. It was, after all, three lifetimes and several centuries earlier.

"My hand . . . On the button, ready to end it all . . . Then Henrik's, still wondering how I'd survived." Haunted eyes stared across at me. "Did I-? I _buried_ the memory of the end of the war so no one could extract it from my mind."

I inclined my head. "Someday, you will tell the story of your greatest victory to y-" I clamped a hand over my mouth; I'd almost said too much.

"To whom? My companions?" He had no idea.

I cleared my throat. "Yes, your companions." I couldn't look in his eyes, not when they didn't hold the same warmth I remembered.

Something occurred to him and he leaned forward. "What of Rassilon?"

My eyes shot back to his. I knew I could tell him; it was all in his past. Finding the words was difficult. "What is it you want to know?"

"He tried to pull Gallifrey out of the Time War using the Master."

"Yes."

"That really happened? I mean, it _still_ happened?"

"As I said, Doctor, you did what you always meant to do. Gallifrey - the entire war - was time-locked; you always knew that, from the moment it happened." I paused for a breath. "Rassilon used a moment in what is in your past to try to escape."

He mulled that information for several moments. "Brew some more tea, dear. I've let mine go cold."

Some things never change.


	3. Hello, old friend

My vortex manipulator had shorted out when I'd arrived; I had no way of getting home.

Yet.

I had no choice but to wait for that woman who helped the Doctor recover what he'd lost. I knew almost nothing of her, yet I owed her nearly everything.

The TARDIS's memory is an interesting thing. She remembers the past and the future. I know how to fly her, of course; I had my first lesson soon after looking into the Untempered Schism.

That was an experience beyond words. Such exquisite pain in gazing at eternity and knowing oneself to be a part of it. More images, more _possibilities_ than the mind could comprehend.

But she knows. She understands.

The Doctor saw that when I walked up to the console and knew what I was doing. "Hello, old friend," I whispered to her.

"Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go?" he asked.

I wanted to go home, but that wasn't possible. Then I remembered a promise that hadn't been kept. "Th- My father always meant to take me to the Medusa Cascade. Could - could we go there? I realise it's -"

There was such sadness in those eyes, but he nodded.

_No crossing your own timeline; it's too risky, too dangerous._

The Doctor's the only one who successfully did it, and gloriously.

He opened the doors of the TARDIS, and there it was. The Cascade was as beautiful as I'd heard. Seeing portraits of it was nice, but nothing could have equalled seeing it like this. Colours swirled and planets revolved and moons danced around us.

"It's every bit as amazing as I'd heard," I breathed. "Thank you for bringing me."

We spent several minutes in silence. I knew what happened here: the reality bomb that never went off, the encounter with Davros and Dalek Caan, the biological metacrisis and the DoctorDonna.

I'll never see that place up close. Even after all these centuries, asking him to return to that spot would be cruel. This was as close as he would ever come, up in orbit.

The TARDIS knows that. I looked into her heart once, and there were so many things I saw, so many things she showed me that I will never forget.

I _must_ never forget.

"Where should we go next?" he asked softly.

"Oh . . . What do you think, old friend? Where do we need to go?" I asked of the TARDIS.

The Doctor looked at me curiously. "How did you do that?"

I grinned and shook my head. "Spoilers."

He groaned. He really doesn't like it when I say that.


	4. Rules, Complications

It was a clever little lie that saved the Doctor at Trenzalore.

The energy that he had sent into his severed hand all those years ago only counted as half a regeneration (if that much), and he used bits of it to heal himself over his long lives.

And, of course, there was that time Melody Pond killed him with her poisoned lipstick then revived him. That - well, I've never been completely sure I understood that. She used her remaining regenerations in one go to bring him back, yes. But whether that only revived him or also gave him some extra burst . . .

Gallifreyan biology is difficult to explain. We are what we are. And we lead complicated lives when we travel through time and space.

The point is that he did have a regeneration remaining when he went out to face the Daleks. He knew what would happen if they killed him.

And so he told Clara what she needed to hear so she could ask the time-locked Time Lords for help. Oh, they were well aware of what he had in mind; it only made sense.

But he couldn't have taken out the Daleks with a simple regeneration. It required an explosive burst of energy.

The Time Lords knew the Doctor would survive that day; the Doctor knew it, too, despite what he said to Clara.

Rule One: The Doctor lies.

* * *

"So you know the Doctor in the future?" Clara asked rather casually.

I grinned. "Yes, I do."

"_This_ version of him?"

He sneaked a peek over at us across the console, as though to warn me against saying too much.

"Yes. Not sure how much older he is by my time, but . . . Some things never change," I admitted.

"Still as stubborn?"

"Oh, goodness, yes. Always." We both chuckled at his expression.

"Come, now, Doctor," Clara called out. "In you, that's endearing."

That's what my mother used to say. Or _will_ say, from the Doctor's perspective. You can see why things get complicated.

Twisty-turny, knotty-wotty . . . things.


	5. Sticky Buns

Arguing was getting us nowhere. "How about _I_ run into the shop and you two stay here?" I offered.

Clara nodded slowly. "Just make sure to get plenty of chocolate things."

"Of course." Chocolate. Oh, chocolate! I could rhapsodise about the glorious swirl of flavour that is chocolate!

I strolled out of the TARDIS and went down the block to the bakery Clara had told me about; it had sounded so good, the Doctor had offered to make a stop.

Unfortunately, we landed at a time when we might run into younger versions of them. The Doctor's first instinct had been to journey a little way into the future, but I'd had a niggling worry that that might lead to even more trouble.

Hence, our little argument.

So, there I was, the smell of freshly baked pastries filling my nostrils, when a singular surprise met my eyes.

"Darn it," Clara muttered at her computer.

_'Good thing she didn't come in, then. That would've been a sticky situation.'_

"Hi," I greeted the man behind the counter with a smile. "Three eclairs, six sticky buns, a dozen chocolate doughnuts, and, oh, six of those cream-filled, yummy-looking, flaky pastries. Thanks." A _ding_ sounded from my pocket. Ah, a text message on what any passing human would assume was a phone. "Could I have a tin of shortbread, too?"

"Lot of people to feed?" Clara's voice sounded behind me.

I chuckled briefly. "Nah, just three of us, but we're on . . . sort of a long journey. And I heard they have great doughnuts here."

I don't think I'd realised before that day that Clara's only slightly taller than I am.

"Best doughnuts in town," she affirmed. "Any chance you're good with computers? Mine's not really cooperating."

"I'm - Did you try the helpline?"

"Yeah. No one ever answers."

She hadn't met that woman who gave her the Doctor's number yet, then.

"Here ya go, sweetie. I threw in a cherry tart, too, on the house," the clerk stated.

"Aw, thanks so much. I adore cherry tarts." I paid and turned back to Clara. "Your comp-" My phone _dinged_ again. The message was from Clara in the TARDIS: _The number. Today. You._

Anyone else reading that wouldn't have understood the significance. I understood it all too well.

I pulled a slip of paper from my pocket. "Sorry. My . . . companions are waiting for me. This number's the best helpline in the universe. A bit odd at times but a lifesaver."

"They're that good?" She took the paper.

"Gotten me out of more jams than I can count," I admitted.

She nodded in that way she does when she's still not sure yet willing to give something a go. "Thanks. I'll try them later. I should be running myself. Oh, and don't forget the chocolate milk," she advised.

"Right," I gasped. "Can't believe I nearly left without that. She'd have sent me right back for it."

"Force of habit. I like chocolate milk with my pastry, especially doughnuts. Well, see ya around."

"See ya."

Knotty-wotty, not wibbly-wobbly.

Everything ties together somehow, even if it takes centuries.


End file.
